


Mayhem, Milk, and Medication

by h311agay



Series: Essays for School [11]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Essay, Freeform, prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-15
Updated: 2014-10-15
Packaged: 2018-02-21 07:34:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2460131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/h311agay/pseuds/h311agay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Second Essay of the Year in English 11</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mayhem, Milk, and Medication

You’re sitting on your couch, the lights low, the smell of buttery popcorn clogging your nose as you and your significant other rest and watch some TV. You both laugh at the crazy antics of whatever Peter’s gotten himself into this time on Family Guy before the screen cuts to black and goes to a commercial. You both groan, hating the nuisance that has suddenly interrupted your mindless zoning of the television program. Now, you’re both forced to sit and wait for the show to return, whilst the messages play past. Some of them make you laugh, and others are a snooze fest. Some of them are terrifying while others make you wonder if perhaps you, too, should buy that item. I mean, if Katy Perry’s acne was fixed by ProActive, shouldn’t it fix yours as well? This is all caused by the advertisement’s ability to play with your emotions through _pathos_ , your trust through _ethos_ , and your logic through _logos_.

            A play on your emotions in the world of persuasion and ads, is referred to as pathos. Pathos is simply defined as exploiting consumer emotions to make them feel good about a product or believe they can’t live without it. Often times, an advertisement will use humour, fear, sex appeal, patriotism, and bandwagon to convince you to buy that product. One such endorsement belongs to the auto insurance company, Allstate. There’s a grown man behind the wheel of a pink SUV portraying a teenage girl. Mayhem, as the character is named, receives a text message from her friend telling the driver she’s kissed a boy named Johnny. The driver clips a parked car and continues driving. "I'm a teenage girl. My bff Becky texts and says she's kissed Johnny. Well that's a problem cause, I like Johnny. Now, I'm emotionally compromised. Whoopsies. I'm all 'OMG, Becky's not even hot.' And if you've got cut rate insurance, you could be paying for this yourself. So get Allstate. You could save money and be better protected from Mayhem, like me” (Liza). In this promotion advertising Allstate’s car insurance, there is an abundance of humour and even some fear in the commercials. Why they couldn’t have an actual teenage girl in the vehicle is unknown. They provide no information on how much a person will save if they use Allstate, but they do try and frighten the person into getting their insurance. Another group that effectively exercises pathos in their communiqué is Geico. In one of their advertisements, Geico has a camel walking through an office work environment, annoyingly asking the workers if they know what day it is. An exasperated female worker then replies with the answer, simply stating that it was Hump Day. The camel then becomes excited and goes around exclaiming the answer.  The ad then has a man’s voice giving the information for Geico before cutting to the end. There is no real reason behind the commercial other than to make the viewers laugh. The hope behind it is that the people will find it amusing enough that they will switch to Geico.

Ethos is using a person’s trust in a product or idea created by a well-known figure or who endorses it via a testimonial. The Got Milk advertisements and commercials effectively use ethos. In one such publication for the Superbowl of 2013, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is the focus. It starts with him opening the fridge to find an empty gallon of milk, turning to three girls at the breakfast table and telling them. The girls are disappointed but Dwayne hurries out of the house in his pajamas and begins to run through the city, ignoring multiple events along the way. He’s first stopped by a girl who needs help getting her cat out of a tree but he leaves her there, apologising. He leaves a group of robbers at a bank to get away and passes a car with people in it and a lion on top. After grabbing the milk and hurrying back, there’s a zoo escape and alien invasion. It’s not until after he’s gotten milk for the girls and had his own glass that he announces to them he has to get to work, punching an alien in the face. Got Milk is trying to convey the message that if The Rock drinks milk, and is so awesome and cool as the commercial portrays, then if you drink milk, you, too, will be as great as Dwayne. There’s no information on how the milk is good for you or how it will help your body. They are falling back onto the hope that people will want to buy the product just because Dwayne Johnson drinks it. Got Milk is a perfect company to talk about ethos. They have used many celebrities and well-known figures throughout the years. From Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson to Carrie Underwood, The Power Puff Girls to Mario. My Chemical Romance and even Batman. There have been countless different posters for this company that reaches out to everyone. And all they need is your trust.

Logos appeals to the consumer’s logical or reasonable side by focusing strictly on product quality and value. Commercials for Abilify effectively use logos when trying to get people to go and talk to their doctor about the antidepressant. In one such Abilify ad, a cartoon woman is standing there when a hole appears in the ground. A black mass is symbolising her depression. As she speaks, Depression takes on different forms. Going from a balloon to a ball and chain. It becomes a hole in the ground once again before spreading underneath her and causing her to fall in. The doctor helps her out and the endorsement changes to a scene where she and Depression are sitting in chairs listening to the doctor talk about Abilify, giving its warnings and side-effects. Throughout the entirety of the commercial, facts, statistics, and warnings scroll along the bottom of the screen. The advertisement keeps the viewer entertained while giving off important information and making the event of discussing the medication with your doctor an appealing one.

When trying to make their products sell, advertisers will target a person’s emotions through the utilization of pathos. They warp and twist how things really are, often making a person feel as if they need the product in their life instead of giving them real reason behind why they should buy it. They also cling to the hope that you trust the popular figure that they may use when they apply ethos to the messages. They go for people with squeaky-clean backgrounds or, depending on the product, will adopt someone that gives off a bad aura. They also give you no real reason to buy the product other than the fact that this big famous person owns it or suggests they have purchased it. It doesn’t matter whether or not that the actor or actress that’s being paid to endorse the product actually uses it in their daily lives or not. Logos is the only of the three techniques that actually target a person’s intelligence or common sense. They often apply appealing statistics or frightening facts to make a person compelled to go for that product. It is because of these three Greek terms and techniques that advertisements are so popular and effective in making viewers see things differently.

Work Cited

Liza, “Allstate - "Meet Mayhem" and more Mayhem!” homadge.com. 13 Jul. 2010. Web. 16 Sept. 2014.


End file.
